Lungomare Art Kostrena

A design for the beach, for all the people.

The Žurkovo area is famous for its coastal path which passes alongside various beaches. According to some, the most beautiful of them, Svežanj beach, has undergone a designer intervention.

The place is characterised by the typical Adriatic landscape, with rocky coves and pebbly shorelines at the bottom of the bay, surrounded by dense macchia. Although the cove is located between a large dry dock shipyard on the west and an oil finery on the east, this place is dominated by a primaeval Mediterranean serenity. Here the cove is not flooded with tourists, but it offers a refuge for the local people, workers, students and pensioners and obliges the designers to take a particularly careful approach based on detailed analysis and collaborative strategies.

The designed concept includes two layers of intervention, on one hand it is focused on the protection of the area and a functional reorganisation, and on the other the recognition and definition of the essential functional objects, their design and layout in harmony with the needs and wishes of the current and potential future users of the beach. One of the most acknowledged art-design collectives in the region, Numen/For Use, which is made up of Sven Jonke (DE), Christoph Katzler (AT) and Nikola Radeljković (HR) is producing a proposal for the reorganisation of the beach and a site-specific design of urban furniture for the beach. One example of such designed furniture (a prototype) is to be placed permanently in Kostrena, in the area of Žurkovo, on the beach and around Svežanj beach. The prototypes consist of: new showers, a changing room, 3 types of benches that can be tried on the renovated lookout, a refurbished lifeguard tower and a mast for the Blue Flag. Also within the project certain simple construction works are being executed (construction of dry stone walls along the rocks, etc.) for the functionality of the beach. The copyright for the reproduction of designed urban equipment along other beaches on Žurkovo remains with the Municipality of Kostrena.

The authors waived part of their fee in 2020 and therefore contributed to the successful implementation of the project, which would not otherwise be possible due to the financial crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Photo: Kristijan Vučković